A PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT Of the Articles of Christ's descent into AND Rising again from the Dead IN A SERMON Preach'd in the Parish Church of Bridgewater on Easter-Day Anno Domini 1697. By WILLIAM ALLEN â— â— Vicar of Bridgewater in Somerset What will this Babler say because he Preached unto them Jesus and the Resurrection Acts 17.18 Am I therefore become your Enemy because I tell you the Truth Gal. 4.16 London Printed for J. Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard and J. Miller Bookseller in Sherborne and at his Shop in Yeavill 1697. TO JOHN HARVEY Of the Castle in Bridgewater Gent. T IS a Priviledge that the Country Ministers are bless'd with above your great Towns Vicars or Lecturers that their People remembring their Catechisms presume not to think themselves more Learned or Wiser than their Teachers but according to Christian Primitive Modesty and Doctrine they Learn of and Obey Reverence and are Ruled by their Spiritual Pastors But your Corporation Catechumens your Men of Gath are big of themselves especially if Opulent and Thriving and will not allow Master Parson whether he belongs to Church or Conventicle for that 's the diminitive word they scornfully Salute with the Levitical Order whether in Gown and Cassock or in Coat and long Cloak they will not I say allow them so much as to think otherwise than they think nor to speak otherwise than they would have them speak nor grant that their University Education or much Study or many years Exercise in the Ministry gives them any ascendant above their Level If they will not say their Pater-Noster the way they would have them they shall have no Peter's Pence from them Thus stands the Case of your Town and City Clergy And some of the Sons of the Church I am loath to think them Sons of Belial but they have appear'd such Sons of strife and stiffness as indeed provok'd me against mine inclination to publish the following Sermon at the Preaching of which two of your discontented Pew-Mates carried themselves as at other times ever since the * Tho' they have very early taken the Oaths to K. W. and Q. M. Revolution with all the proud and insolent contempt imaginable yea and in seeming great rage and wrath quitted the Congregation as if I had been about overturning Foundations and deny'd the Faith once deliver'd to the Saints and were running apace to the Dissenters and was doing their work This is the Charge and this is the Crime and I think it a very great one too if I should think say or do any thing against the Church But I have deliver'd no more than what you may read in the Bishop of Worcester's Discourse against the Socinians or in Dr. Lightfoot Bishop Peirson Dr. Towerson and others of our Learned Church of England The Dissenters as the Novatians of Old may be right in their Doctrine except in that which causes or occasions their separation And I heartily wish all that are Zealous for or against Ceremonies were as warm for Peace and Holiness Truth and Concord and that all of us as Disciples of the humble and holy Jesus under the Ministry of Paul or Apollo would as new-born-Babes desire the sincere Milk of the word that we may grow thereby in Grace and substantial Knowledge which is the earnest and sincere Prayer of the Minister of the Parish and Parish Church of Bridgewater and therefore your very Humble Servant William Allen. From my Study Bridgewater April 1697. THE PREFACE IT was an early Custom in the Asian Church and continues so to this very day says Sir Paul Ricaut for Christians to Salute each other with this Chearful Congratulation on Easter Morning Christ is Risen and the Return is Christ is Risen indeed For 't was a melancholy interval with Christ's first Disciples which he foretold them of that they should mourn when the World did rejoyce All the while the Son of Righteousness was in an Eclipse his poor Disciples were in a state of darkness and fear and trouble and almost despondency as we may gather from their faint hopes in their way to Emaus Luke 24.21 We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel But in a farther Conference our Saviour chides and rebukes them for their little confidence O Fools and slow of Heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken whereof this is one Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption He descended into Hell is one of the Articles of that which we call the Apostle's Creed Not that I believe it is in totidem verbis any more the Apostle's-Creed than it is yours or mine Indeed there was a certain Writer tells us a Story That the Apostles before their parting from Jerusalem into the several parts of the World to Preach the Gospel agreed upon a form of Christian Faith and that every one cast in his Symbolum or Article which made just Twelve But for this we have only this one Man's word but all the other Ancients know nothing of this Matter Or that the present Creed commonly call'd the Apostle's-Creed was as Ruffinus reports theirs All the Learned now a-days in Church-History are agreed it was never composed by them Not but that there was a form of sound words but not as now Some were derived from the Apostles or from their days As I Believe in God the Father Or as the Greeks read it in One God the Father in opposition to the Polytheism of the Heathens And in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son our Lord I Believe in the Holy Ghost the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting These are all we can call Primitive from the Apostles Tho' all the other are true yet the others were added since in opposition to Heresies as they sprang up in the Church As was Conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost was put in in opposition to the Carpocratians Ebonites and Corinthians who taught that Christ was born in the ordinary and common way as other Men and Women are Was Born of the Virgin Mary Suffer'd under Pontius Pilate was placed in the Creed in contradiction to the Docetae Simonians and others who affirmed Christ to be a Man not really but phantastically and in appearance I believe the Remission of Sins was added to the form of words against the Basilidians and Novatians They only held that not all Sins but only involuntary ones would be remitted The other deny'd remission to the lapsed But to come more immediately to my Theam and to trace no longer the rest The Article of the descent into Hell was brought in toward the latter end of the Fourth Century From this account of the Creed I may again assume my assertion that that we commonly call the Apostles as it stands in our Liturgy is no more their Creed than it is mine or yours That is you and I believe all these Articles because they are in the Scriptures and
return'd to put the Organs again in tune The first Adam brought in Sin and Death into the World the second Life and Immortality An Argument which the Apostle pursues in 1 Cor. 15.47 The first Man is of the Earth Earthy the second Man is the Lord from Heaven Our Bodies must to Dust or Earth because they were made of Dust They must moulder because they are Mortal Our Natures as derivative from a Sinner are decreed to death and dissolution and must sink into the same Principle of which they are compounded but the second Man is the Lord from Heaven the Lord of Life and Immortality He doth not bring Death but Life to Body and Soul And therefore in v. 45. the Apostle stiles him a quickning Spirit keeping his Body tenantable tho' he went out of it and not only so but he was Lord of his own Body and none other had Power and Dominion over it None nor any thing could assault his Body laid up as in a Repository for his returning It seems by what we read in the History of the Gospel he put a Life-guard of Angels upon it or about it while he went into a far Country which frighted both the Souldiers and Devout Women that came to his Sepulchre to look after him Luke 24.4 The Socinians here banter and batter this Bulwark of our Faith by asserting that Christ had no power of his Body that when dead and in the Grave was out of his Care or Concern That 't was God kept his Body incorruptible and rais'd it such It was God the Father that took care of the Body and Soul of God the Son We yield this but he was such a Son of God as dwelt in Flesh not after the manner of the first Adam's Progeny His Body was of a finer make and purer mould conceiv'd of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin and so had the Seeds of Immortality in it and was not to corrupt tho' the Inmate was for a while to remove God the Father did indeed raise Christ from the dead as we read Gal. 1.1 But it 's also written that Christ also did raise himself Joh. 2.21 Destroy this Temple and I will raise it again Where he speaks of the Temple of his Body Which he might very properly call a Temple because the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily And in Scripture we are inform'd That when he was risen from the dead his Disciples remembred that he had said this unto them and they believ'd the Scripture and the word that Jesus had said That Christ took care of his own Body and rais'd himself For 't is written Joh. 5.21 As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even so the Son quickneth whom he will He then which quickneth the dead Bodies of others when he raiseth them he also quickned his own Body when he raised that Thirdly and lastly His body was not to see Corruption because he was as the Christian High-Priest to enter into the Holy of Holiest as the first-fruits of the Dead So our Apologist St. Peter v. 29 c. of this Chapter Men and Brethren let me freely speak unto you of the Patriarch David that he is both dead and buried and his Sepulchre is with us unto this day therefore being a Prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his Throne He seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his Soul was not left in Hell neither his flesh did see Corruption This Spiritual High-Priest must enter into the Holy of Holiest with all his Pontificalibus his Body and Soul Clean and Clear Pure and Perfect Radiant and Glorious the true Regalia that adorn'd the Investiture of this High-Priest He was also to rise as the first fruits the Cause and Pledge of all others Resurrection Afterwards they that are Christ's even Holy and Pious Men shall be raised up but not immediately for their Bodies must remain in the Grave and their Souls in Hades 'till he calls them They must see Corruption and pay the debt of a corrupt Nature and undergo the Pennance of the Grave and Hades Not that they feel pain in the one or the other but they willingly resign to the Divine Decree and for a while rest in hope of a glorious Redemption For the bonds of Death were unloosed by the Captain of our Salvation but they were such bonds as did not fetter they were willingly put on and easily put off The Christian High-Priest was to be a Freeman not a Prisoner he was not to enter with Shackles but rather with the Armature of a glorious Victor Eph. 6.13 c. With the whole Armour of God with the Brest-plate of Righteousness with the Shield of Faith with the Helmet of Salvation with the Sword of the Spirit by which he stood in the day of trial and withstood the fiery Darts of the Wicked and cut in sunder the bonds of Death To allude to the Apostle's Phrase From these Considerations we may conclude his Body could not see Corruption 1. Because in three days according to Promise and Prediction he was to assume his Body 2. Because he was the second Adam and so he was not under the guilt or the penalty of the first 3. Because he as the High-Priest was to enter Body and Soul pure as the Aether into the Everlasting Kingdom the Regions of Light and Glory The Doctrinal part of this Sermon speaks Comfort to us all words of great Consolation that should enliven us and fill us with joy in believing For First The same Lord Jesus that raised and reassumed his own Body shall raise ours and make them like his Glorious Body Phil. 3.21 It is the Faith of all Orthodox Divines that had the first Adam stood we had stood in him in his integrity in a perfect and holy Nature and in the favour of God And that after the expiration of a determinate time our Bodies and Souls had been translated as Enoch's and Elias's without seeing Death into a state of Immortality But what we lost by the first Man's prevarication will be beyond our deserts restored by the second Adam And as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all be made alive All are to live but some to the Resurrection of the Just whose Bodies shall be made like Christ's glorious Body The second Adam say you who is he Why the seed of the Woman that should bruise the Serpent's head Gen. 3. That Seed in whom all the Nations of the Earth are blessed The second Adam in whom and by whom a new Covenant of Grace is made for blessings in this World and far greater in another that now we might have life and that more abundantly the life of Grace and hereafter the life of Glory This is the Christ whose Body did not see Corruption nor his Soul remain among the
Dead of whom all the Prophets spake of whom the World hath from all Ages rung to all Nations Tho' indeed the great expectation of him was eminently and more explicitely kept alive amongst God's own People the Jews before his coming into the World And they did look for such a one and tho' when he did come they rejected him yet such a one they did and do still expect But we are convinc'd that Christ is that second Adam and he hath fulfilled all Prophecies and all Righteousness and that very same Jesus that was Crucified at Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate being then the Roman Procurator is the Christ the promis'd Seed and is as himself says the Resurrection from the Dead or He that shall raise the Dead And therefore we are assur'd that our Bodies shall be raised and that more especially Secondly Because Christ is our Lord he hath Redeemed our Bodies by his precious blood and he Sacrificed his Body for ours and we have dedicated our Bodies to him and he is Lord of our Bodies And as Lord of them he will appear again in the Body he appear'd in on Earth in the Body he ascended up into Heaven in that Body shall he come again to judge the quick and the dead and therefore in our Bodies shall we arise to meet our Lord yea our Redeemer and mighty Saviour For he will command the Sea to give up its dead and the Earth to give up its Not only our Souls but our Bodies are Redeemed by him from the Grave and here is the state of the Dead He had not assumed a Body nor suffer'd in his Body nor risen again with his Body but for the benefit of us otherwise Eternally Mortal and lost Creatures in Body and Soul That our Bodies may be made like his glorious Body and that both Bodies and Souls may ever be with the Lord. And for a confirmation of this we consider farther Thirdly That Christ rais'd his own Body But how know we this say you But then say I would it be satisfactory if you had seen it Would you have believ'd if you had convers'd with him after he did rise from the Dead So fancied the Rich Man in Hell but you remember what our Saviour return'd to his Request Luke 16.31 If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one rose from the Dead You have Moses and the Prophets the Scriptures are your Light and Lanthorn the Relation of the Evangelists and the Apostles are your Credentials what hath in this matter been transmitted down from Age to Age for these Sixteen Hundred Years and upwards are your Testimonials And if after all the Witnesses of the Church of God and the Minds of Martyrs we will not yet believe tho' we saw before our Eyes a present Resurrection The Jews did not in the Case of Lazarus But I am not Preaching to Infidels but Believers and we know that because Christ is risen we also shall arise and our Bodies shall be made like Christ's Body For Fourthly Christ will do this great Work by taking away all those Corruptible Qualities and Infirmities to which our Bodies are liable both living and dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That this vile Body may be refin'd and freed from decay being made like the Glorified Body of Jesus after the Resurrection Hence some have Critically if not too curiously affirm'd That the Infant and the Aged and all others shall at the Resurrection appear in their Bodies of the same youthfulness with that which Christ laid down and rose again in I can't be positive in that but we may say more to the purpose when we say that our Bodies shall be like Christ's glorious Body i. e. Bodies freed from the corruption of Matter the blemishes of Age and the greater stain of Sin Bodies that shall be made capable of mounting aloft And this will be easily effected if we consider Fifthly The Instrument by which our Lord shall effect this Wonder even by his Omnipotence Why says the same Apostle should it be thought impossible that God should raise the Dead The Chymists tell us for certain that the Particles of a resolv'd Body may retain their own Nature under various alterations and disguises of which it is possible they may be stript and that without making a Humane Body cease to be the same it may be repaired and augmented by the adaption of congruously disposed Matter Which Philosophy solves the difficulty of the loss of Body into Earth and from thence to Grass and from Grass to Chyle in the Ox or the Sheep's Belly and from thence into food again for Man so that thro' a successive Transmigration the Body of Man becomes that of another But why should it be thought impossible that a most intelligent Agent whose Omnipotence extends to all that is not contradictory to the nature of things or of his own should be able so to order and watch the Particles of a Humane Body as that a compleat number may be preserv'd and retriev'd so that stripping them of their disguises or extricating them from other parts of Matter to which they may happen to be conjoyn'd he may re-unite them betwixt themselves and if need be with Particles of Matter fit to be contexted with them which being united with the former Soul may in a sense consonant to the Expressions of Scripture re-compose the same Man whose Soul and Body were formerly dejoyn'd by Death But if you enquire as Nicodemus How can these things be I can answer no other than what is already said unless it be in the words of our Saviour to Peter's impertinent enquiry What 's that to thee and I Let us believe in God believe also in Christ and be followers of him in the Regeneration and we need not doubt of coming again and appear at the Resurrection of the Just For Lastly We conclude that a Spiritual Resurrection in this Life must precede the blessed and glorious Resurrection to Eternal Life 'T is for the sake of a raised Mind that the Body shall be like Christ's glorious Body for we must not expect to have a part in the Resurrection of the Just unless in this Life we commense such Men. The pure in Heart and the pure in Life shall only see God as their Redeemer with their bodily Eyes or their intellectual ones If any are so wretched as to go out of this World with corrupt Affections and an Earthy Heart with brutish Minds and sordid Desires happy would it be if they could perish as the Beasts do But ah Lord there is a lower descent for such Men. They shall not be blessed with the refuge and silence of a Grave The Earth must give up its Dead and after a while Earth must be no longer Earth but Earth must to Hell in the most dreadful sense and sound of the word And without all question at the great Conflagration Bodies and Souls will be tumbled down into the devouring Fire and the then Everlasting Flames A corrupt Mind not only breeds a Worm that will continually gnaw and that never dies as our Saviour teaches but it causes and leaves a sinful putrefaction in the Flesh which remains after the Soul is fled and will continue when the Soul returns the torment of which will out-last the Corruption of the Grave or the Doom-Days Fire which neither the one or the other can consume or destroy Wherefore it concerns us all now to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit There 's no Purgatory after this Life that 's a Dream or a Doctrine rather if you will of some Crafty Priests that make Gain their Godliness and would perswade Men that they are Redeemed with Gold and Silver against the express Dogma of St. Peter As the Tree falls so it will lie And if we sow to the Flesh we shall of the Flesh reap Corruption But let us from the Considerations before offer'd be provok'd as the Philosopher to bespeak our Souls after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It becomes us having a Glorious Hope for our Bodies and our Souls to purifie our selves as God is pure to set our Affections on Things Above and not on Things on Earth to mortifie the deeds of the Body and to mount and raise our Minds to the Coelestial Regions the pure Aether the proper Mansions for all that are made meet to be Inheritors with the Saints in Light FINIS